


Documents in Obscurity

by Webtrinsic



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dan is smitten, Drug Withdrawal, Handwriting, Herbert's kinda a dick, M/M, Meg is a Succubus, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Poor Dan Cain, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Herbert West, Possessive Meg, Re-Agent, Re-Animator - Freeform, Sad Daniel Cain, Soulmates, Soulmates are born with journals to communicate, Unrequited Love, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26902309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: A soul journal was supposed to be a way of communicating with your soulmate and finding out more about them. All Dan finds out is that his soulmate is hell bent on re-animating the dead.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Documents in Obscurity

**Author's Note:**

> this is really just for fun :) i just saw the journal au and went off the rails with it
> 
> idk why the title Herbert West The Re-Animator is so satisfying to me, like yass bby herbert is the reanimator!

Everyone who has a soulmate gets a journal, one with no limit of pages or way of destruction. If you lost yours it eventually turned up, sometimes when it didn’t it was said that your soulmate strongly wanted time apart. If that was the case Dan often wondered why he was so aware of his. His soulmate seemingly wanted nothing to do with him, and never had. It was a way for them to communicate and keep conversations that could never be erased, yet whoever was on the other end of the journal had only addressed him once!

And it wasn’t anything sweet or even a greeting. It was a firm:  _Don’t relay any of this information to anyone, or let the journal get into anyone else’s hands but your own._ The bastard had even underlined it!

Years of radio silence, and suddenly their journal is booming with life. Booming with equations and recipes, scientific data and memory on a ludicrous topic that made Dan fear his soulmate was a nut. It didn’t help that a good portion of that data was written in german and other alternating languages either.

Re-animating the dead was a nice thought, he was a doctor, there would be nothing better than curing death, really, he’d been told enough times to stop trying after he’d perilously dipped into the hysteria and adrenaline of trying to save a life. Bullheadedness kept him pumping down on unmoving chest’s, the static of defibrillators living in his ear drums, determination sinking him lower into the depths when he failed.

He’d read through their shared journal a hundred times, even more than he read the medical books he needed to survive his career. He knew his soulmate well and not at all, although it was exceedingly obvious to Dan when their failure came at the cost of lives, they didn’t face the same sort of defeat. Dan mourned a life cut short, while his soulmate begrudged his work having gone wrong. Daniel Cain failed patients whereas _whoever_ failed themselves. That fact had the tendrils of sympathy and pity reaching out.

Dan wasn’t bold enough to pry his soulmate anymore with actual conversation, so when he skimmed the pages and found where the pen or pencil pressed down hard on the page in defeat, he left soft notes of encouragement, far enough to the side as not to interfere with the man’s lettering. Once he’d written too close and it’d been crossed out as if his commentary was a nuisance. Everything after that hadn’t been interfered with so Dan took that as a win, he’d gotten the assumption correct.

In this instance though, with all his courage and maybe just for the smug satisfaction, Dan crossed out some of the unusually sloppy scrawl, _correcting the master_ , because Dan really had picked up a thing or two from his work. 

_Go to bed_ ! He followed with after (making his underline dark), figuring that was the reason for the dragging font. There were times the scrawl also came out wobbly, but Dan, as a doctor, didn’t want to look too hard into it. He already knew his soulmate was some sort of mad scientist hell bent on re-animating the dead, for Dan’s own piece of mind he didn’t add _potential victim of drug withdrawal_ to the mix. It was too much to ask of himself. 

The next day when Dan opened the Journal, words were being filled in on the newest pages. The research shifted and included _his_ notes, in the margins there was the curt, undeniably stilted words. _Thank you Daniel._ There was no mention of sleep, but it was apparent from the writer's focused and cordial format, he’d gotten some much needed rest. Daniel wasn’t sure what shocked him more, his soulmate listened to him, or that his soulmate used his name.

The journal didn’t erase any conversations, so there was the embarrassingly young half assed barely legible introduction from Dan that had garnered no response, breaking his fairly young heart. The Re-Animator could have flipped to the front to find his name, it just didn’t seem to fit the character. His soulmate was irritably intelligent. That and maybe Dan was being a little bit of a hopeless romantic, his soulmate remembered his name!

Damn, the bar was low at this point. He’d take what he could get, even if it wasn’t true. 

* * *

Some pages are stained with droplets, droplets that at first seemed to be neon green before they dried into a crusted yellow. 

Dan had spent hours wondering what those stains belonged to. When he’d realized that those stains were the very re-agent being concocted in those pages, Dan spent a good two hours banging his head against the nearest wall before calling out of work for that day. It wasn’t one of his finest moments, and the headache that came rampaging after was more than deserved, even if it was hell.

* * *

Meg comes into his life, declaring proudly that she doesn’t have a soulmate meaning they could be _something_. She knew he had the nameless scientist (he personally liked referring to him as "The Re-Animator" but he wouldn't try correcting her, she couldn't know what was in the book), but that didn’t seem to be a deterrent, especially when he’d drunkenly admitted he wasn’t quite sure his soulmate had the potential to love him.

Meg had latched onto that tidbit, held onto it enough to remind him everyday she loved him in a way his soulmate didn’t or couldn’t. 

His journal is cramped in a box under his bed and he’s falling into the pits of despair with Meg waiting for him with open arms. It’s unconscious that the journal on Herbert West’s table disappears into the void. Meg Halsey is a temptress, lusting after Dan the Adonis, believing if she doesn’t have a soulmate she can make him into her own and his negligent soulmate would be none the wiser. 

They’d maybe even thank her.

* * *

Herbert’s first thought as he reached onto the table for his journal only to come up short, is that someone had stolen it.

Unbridled terror surges in his re-agent filled veins. He’d been on edge when he’d first started writing in his soul journal, he knew the risks of it potentially falling out of existence or hiding just out of his reach, and he’d long since determined with a soul mate like Dan he’d never have that trouble.

He’d been inattentive from the start, even after the other boy introduced himself, and never once had the book gone too far, after his failure to introduce himself in the past the book had shelved itself on a bookshelf he couldn’t reach, but otherwise it's always stayed close. Dan had accepted the silence.

His soulmate was definitely devoted, that much he could tell. Originally it’d been a hard call to make. Allowing his soulmate to carry his secrets, except if he could trust anyone, his soulmate was his fairest bet. Attesting to that was the commentary he left behind, Daniel, continued to read and observe, even assuring him childishly when something went amiss. It was touching in a way Herbert hadn’t expected, hadn’t wanted to expect even when he knew when it came to his soulmate he probably should. 

His work required him to be something above a mortal man, in life he’d always seen love as something abhorrently human. It’s why he’d rarely given Dan the time of day, the rest really had been plain forgetfulness though. Too immersed in his work to even realize he should be conversing. In the moments he had remembered he’d been put off by the fact he often found chatter menial, and was embarrassed to admit he knew he wouldn’t very well be able to keep a proper _fluent_ conversation, even if he was writing it out.

(Considering Daniel put up with his work, he'd likely put up with his lack of charm as well. But he held to any excuse to hide away, even if he didn't always want to.)

The scientist ran to the nearest door, checking every single lock to find them all fastened, before running and checking the windows. Nothing. No sign of entrance, and the damn thing had been right there!

Right by…the realization of it's disappearance turned in his skull. ”Oh Danny,” Herbert sighed begrudgingly, sullenly, trying not to blame himself even when he knew he should be.

“Dammit,” the word tore through his throat, his cramped digits shooting up to his hair in a mixture of annoyance and fury. From now on it seemed he’d have to go about things differently.

* * *

It was something different to be “loved”, that much was evident as Meg dragged him along. Sending sharp smiles over her shoulders, trailing her lips across his own, and his shoulders, and over his heart.

_“I love you Danny. Don’t ever leave me danny. I want you. Think of me as your new soulmate,”_

He tries and he can't truly. Nonetheless she still has him entranced. He knows what she is, has heard the horror stories, wondered how they got their victims. Pondered all too judgingly at how the victims allowed what has come to pass, but he understands now. He stands in their shoes.

She is alone, and she feeds. She steals him from his true soulmate without care because she is hungry enough to consume without any mind of whose plate she is eating off of. Meg drowns the pain and yearning for his partner with her hands. She places her palms on his shoulders, runs them down his chest, thumbs at his hips, and tongues his collarbones.

Dan figures she is a witch or a demon, holding him hostage. It’s been so long since the warm leather of his journal braced his creased palms and the pages tickled the ends of his fingers. That is her doing as well.

His mind ached for his soul's flat morbidly ethereal calligraphy. His eyes burned with its memory. Nothing else kept him going. Dan went to work aimlessly, fighting for his life and others as he walked throughout the Miskatonic hospitals halls. There is a small reprieve when he is at home, when Meg is off with her father, he is as close to alone as could be. All except for a black cat he’d deemed Rufus. It is black as night with eyes of emerald and better company than he’s had in weeks. Months.

Rufus’s fur keeps him from the cold he feels dominating his torso and numbing his limbs. He’d been through so many bouts of adrenaline, so much so he should be no fool to shock, and still as of late it’s been overtaking him. Sending him to the floor in a quivering mess, exhausting him until he is helplessly weighed down to the very floor. 

He is going through withdrawal, one not unlike those that were accompanied by the absence of drugs (like the one his soulmate experiences), one that only belonged to those with a soulmate that presumptonaly accosted the earth itself for their separation. 

It takes all of his strength to pull himself off the floor, Rufus’s runs against his sides, a helpful spur to his senses, sending him down the hall and to his bed. He’s digging beneath it in seconds, tearing apart the box holding his journal hostage. There is a lock wrapped around another box within that box, his journal is in there, he knows it. The female devil has locked him away from his soulmate, stealing him for herself and he can’t help but sob at the thing he has become.

Weakly throwing the box against the ground, Dan begins heartily grating the lock against the bed frame in hopes of breaking it. He wants to scribble down the loudest SOS he can make out. He’ll write it in blood if need be, on pages and pages, he'll-he’ll- “Danny,” soft hands and the smell of Jasmine and Creeping Willow perfume rushes up his nose.

“I’m all you need now,” the box slides from his hands; toppling over, his shoulder and head crash back onto the ground. Nails tap his scalp, petting him for a second as Rufus mews sadly against his ear. Her footsteps patter as she walks away, she doesn’t come back for what seems like hours. When she returns her hands are empty and she’s crouching in front of him. He’s so cold, he’s freezing, dying on the ground.

He wants his soulmate more than anything else in the world, but the journal is out of his grasp and Meg holds him captive. 

“You’ll be a wonderful husband Danny,” he doesn’t want to marry her. She is not who his heart belongs to even if the man who holds it seemingly doesn’t want it. He’d rather feel empty with the right person than a doll to the wrong one. 

Her blond edges blurred, her ruby lips searing his corneas, seizing and blurring out his vision entirely. Dan drowns before he is engulfed in the black abyss of unconsciousness.

* * *

Gruber is dead, his journal is missing, and he still has the need to show up Dr. Hill for plagiarizing his old mentors' work. It is easier to do that than search out his soulmate Daniel Cain. He is, so to speak, in the doghouse at the moment, reaching out may only make it worse. Not even his precocious tenacity could get him to act on that now. Luckily Dean Halsey’s offer came at a good time. And hopefully in time, the journal would return.

* * *

If anyone at work notices Dan’s shift in attitude, they chalk it up to nerves. He’s emotionally checked out, only able to smile on command when his engagement is brought up or when he is talking to his soon to be father in law. Everyone assumes Meg is his soulmate and he is too drained to refute them. Dan feels himself slipping, further and further into her manicured grasp, his journal and heart falling into the unseen depths.

Saving patients and losing them now don’t mean much of anything anymore. It is simply his job and he must abide by his duties. Re-animation is a distant dream, and the neon green that lives in his heart is a motif in his nightmares, a distant light he can never reach.

He briefly considers he’s dead. It is possible it is he who needs to be brought back to life. But Daniel Cain knows there is only one who could do that. His nameless soulmate who almost never wrote him back. _The Re-Animator._

“Dan,” the doctor turns at the call of his soon to be father-in-law. In tow of Dean was a shorter, beautiful man, that had Dan’s heart speeding up. His lethargy shifting away and pulling his smile into something genuine. 

“Dan, I'd like you to meet Herbert West, he was working with Dr. Gruber up in Switzerland until his passing,” Dean began, and Dan put out a hand to shake. 

“Dr. West this is my soon to be son and law, Daniel Cain,” Herbert’s attention had been caught at _soon to be son-in-law_ , it was always smart to make acquaintances with people in high places. But he was enraptured, _stolen_ , by the name.

Herbert didn’t shake hands, it gave people the impression they were worth his time. Except Dan was upset with him and he needed that journal back, so he shook Dan’s offered hand with a friendly squeeze. The squeeze is nothing maliciously tight, although Herbert almost wants to break his hand. _His_ soulmate is engaged, to his new boss's daughter no less. 

Dan moves to speak but a shrill voice interrupts him, “Danny!”

Two heads turn to meet the voice, not Herbert’s, and he still doesn’t let go of Dan’s hand. There is an electrifying tingle in his palm where his skin meets his soulmates. Maybe one day after he accomplishes re-animation, he could study that.

Dan’s hand slips from his grasp as Meg tugs at Dan’s shoulder, pulling him close, Dan stumbles and accepts the side embrace without any resistance. Herbert is all too observant then, and it’s easy for him to see the man’s smile shift, it’s not as sincere as it’d been with him. He wants to gloat and flaunt that fact, except he’s still angry. Angry enough that in the locked box buried under the porch, Dan’s own journal disappears. 

Herbert is disgusted at the sight of her, dolly-blonde hair and her perfectly put upon outfit. He knew exactly who she was just by looking at her, a boring feat for a human being, Surely Dan, his soulmate or not, deserved better than this bimbo.

“I was thinking tonight we pick up some dinner from that diner down the road and then I can help you study for that exam,” The girl looked at her father then.

“You know we have that dinner with Doctor Hill tonight,” He reminded (The name making Herbert visibly grimace which only Dan seemed to notice with another reassuring smile. As if he felt the same about the plagiarizing crook), only for the girl to sigh, pleadingly looking up at him until he gave a nod.

“Ah yes it would be wrong of me to keep apart the lovebirds, have a goodnight you two,” Dean motioned for Herbert to follow along for the rest of the tour, turning only for a second to call back, “Oh and goodluck Dan on finding a roommate,” 

_Roommate._ Herbert couldn’t suppress his smile. He could fix this. He could take back his soulmate, his work, and set up a workshop.

* * *

If Herbert West was anything, petty was up there among other things. Showing up to Dan’s house during their date was a clear sign of that. Dan didn’t seem to mind, in fact, Dan didn’t seem to be all there. He didn’t follow Herbert around the house, he remained curled up on the couch looking awfully pale. In fact when Herbert passed by he seemed to be shivering. Was he sick? 

“Switzerland must have been wonderful,” Meg tries to make conversation, Herbert shrugs, distracted by the large basement. It is enough to make up his mind, the wad of cash is in his hands in seconds before he’s walking back to the foyer to talk with Dan.

Meg is obviously less than pleased, but Dan looks back up at him and smiles tiredly.

“Great, you can move in as soon as you want,” a black cat jumps into the man’s lap then, and Herbert is stuck staring as Dan’s head leans back against the headrest, his energy seemingly depleted. 

“I guess I’ll be going then,” Meg huffed, leaving almost like a gust of wind. _Perfect._

“Are you feeling alright Daniel?” he’d almost called him Danny, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t go over well in this situation. If...Dan was even capable of noticing anything or in the very least reacting with vigor.

“Withdrawal,” the half-awake doctor replied, stiffly running his fingers over Rufus. Dan didn’t know why he felt the need to tell the man in front of him what was wrong. Though it isn’t as if he could tell anyone else. Everyone else thought Meg was his soulmate, Herbert didn't have any history with the people in Arkham at all, maybe that's why it was so easy for him to trust him.

“I didn’t take you for the type,”

“Withdrawal from my soulmate,” Dan slurred out in explanation, eyelids shuttering. The mad scientist pounced at that, moving to the writhing man’s side and tentatively brushing his bangs out of his face. The slightly prespirating doctor leaned into the touch, frigid from an inner cold Herbert could almost feel.

“And why is that Danny?”

“He...he doesn’t love me. Then Meg, Meg. I don’t know what ‘e’s doing to me...took and locked ‘y journal. Can’t-” Dan leaned all too heavily against Herbert then, and the scientist felt fury rise in his chest. That succubus was draining him. 

“I do love you Danny, I apologize for not being the best at displaying it. I was so very proud when you corrected my research. You actually gave me the idea to look into the Amniotic fluid in iguanas-” Dan’s kissing him with more energy than he had seconds ago, and Herbert presses into it with fervor.

Two matching journals appear on the table besides them, only Rufus seems to notice as he scurries to sit atop them.

“Don’t let her marry me,” Dan pleads, lip wobbling as they pant against one another.

“I won’t,” Herbert promises, because Daniel is _his_ soulmate. Their journal wasn’t conventional, nor would their relationship ever be, but that didn’t make their unionization any less valid. It didn't make Dan any less his, and it certainly didn’t give Meg the right to encroach on his territory.

“You’re my soulmate Daniel, you’re mine to keep,” and maybe because Dan was still under the throes of sickness, that possessive declaration sounded a far cry different than what Meg had promised.

Thankfully he’s lucid enough to reply with his own assurance, “You’re mine too,” 

Herbert’s lips pressed together, his brow crinkling. He hadn’t fully considered that, but if that’s what Dan being his soulmate entailed; if it got him his life’s work, and _if_ it meant he could shoot up again. He’d gladly proclaim himself as Dan’s.

He’d kept his secret safe this long, all he could do in turn is keep Dan safe as well.

The brown worn leather on their journals cemented themselves into a daring green. All too fitting for a fickle couple like themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
